February 21, 2025
Dear Seattle community,
One of the earliest images from October 7 seared in my mind was the image of Shiri Bibas clutching her two children, Ariel and Kfir, with total fear in her eyes.
For over 500 days, we have prayed for the safe return of every single hostage torn away from their loved ones by terrorists on October 7, 2023.
Along the way, we rejoiced as many of the hostages were returned home, and we mourned upon learning that many others did not survive. Today, our hearts are broken following yesterday’s return of four bodies to Israel. One of the bodies was identified as Oded Lifshitz. At 84, Oded Lifshitz was among the oldest of the hostages. He was a founder of Kibbutz Nir Oz and an ardent peace activist, volunteering with the “Road to Recovery” program that helped transport sick Palestinian children to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
Ariel and Kfir Bibas’ bodies were also returned yesterday. The Bibas’ family’s plight has been a symbol of Hamas’s barbarity, which was capped off yesterday with a sickening propaganda-filled public ceremony where their bodies were turned over to the Red Cross before being handed over to Israel. This horrific display was made worse in the following hours with the news that the fourth body Hamas returned was not Shiri Bibas — or any other hostage — and then the news this morning that their captors had murdered the Bibas children with their bare hands, likely in November 2023.
The words of Israeli President Isaac Herzog yesterday struck me and capture the feelings so many of us are having:
“Agony. Pain. There are no words.
Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters.
On behalf of the State of Israel, I bow my head and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not protecting you on that terrible day. Forgiveness for not bringing you home safely.
May their memory be a blessing.”
At the time of October 7, my wife and I were expecting our first child. It has been impossible over the last 500 days to not think about my own son whenever I saw images of Ariel and Kfir. Now, sixteen months later, I have a recently turned one-year-old, an age that, it seems, young Kfir never reached while in captivity in Gaza.
Like many other parents, I have held my son a little bit tighter thinking about the unimaginable horror that Shiri endured helplessly being taken into captivity with her children. And, I have also thought about what Yarden, her husband, who was also taken hostage and released at the beginning of this month, endured in captivity and since his return to Israel. I think about the milestones that Ariel and Kfir will never experience and the profound sadness that must be enveloping their father so wholly as the news has set in this week. It is hard to describe in words the evil that just this one family has had to experience.
Every night at bedtime, I say the words of the Hashkiveinu prayer with my son, which includes the lines:
“Spread over us the shelter of Your peace. Guide us with Your good counsel; for Your Name’s sake, be our help. Shield and shelter us beneath the shadow of Your wings. Defend us against enemies, illness, war, famine and sorrow.”
As I’ve said this prayer I’ve often thought about the pure darkness the hostages and their families have endured and tried to direct these words toward them as well. And yet, the prayers, and hopes, and longings, of Jews and others everywhere were not enough to bring the shelter and peace that we longed for the Bibas family, for Oded Lifshitz and his family, and for others.
In moments such as these, our communities rely on one another to come together, embrace each other, and provide strength. I hope we will continue to do so.
May the memories of Shiri, Ariel, Kfir, and Oded be a blessing and may their families be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Solly Kane, President & CEO
Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle
